


Gateway

by thedevilchicken



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood and Injury, Dark, Dream Sex, Knives, M/M, Sex Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 00:02:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18457346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Stephen remembers his dreams. Kaecilius is in them.





	Gateway

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosecake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/gifts).



He knows exactly what's happening. 

In the start, he didn't. He assumed it was the aftereffects of the time loops he'd so bravely - or foolishly - caught himself in, living that same damned moment again and again where Dormammu killed him and killed him and just kept on _killing_ him, but he guesses that was the point. Honestly, he's surprised he didn't go insane. In the start, though, he thought maybe that was exactly the problem. 

It started small: there were flashes in his dreams that startled him awake, but when he woke he had no clue what he'd dreamed. He thought maybe it was his memories of the dark dimension and all the things that happened without really happening, except they'd really, _really_ happened. But then, slowly, he started to remember. He remembered more and more and more. 

He remembered Kamar Taj, with the courtyard there completely empty except for him and the sling ring he was positive was broken because it wouldn't work, or else _he_ was broken, and that remained a possibility. He remembered books in their chain racks and spread out on the tables and an empty space where Wong should have been. He remembered his room, and how everything was so quiet that the only thing he could hear was the rush of his own blood. 

He thought maybe it was just a vision of what might have been if Dormammu had actually managed to take Earth, but logically he knew that was bullshit; Dormammu would have made the planet suffer, not just made the planet empty. He thought maybe it was his subconscious telling him he'd missed something from his training that was going to be important, somehow, sometime. Frankly, over the months, he thought a lot of things. 

And then, when he woke one morning in his bed in the New York sanctum, he remembered Kaecilius. Just like that, after all that time, after all those dreams, he remembered Kaecilius. Each morning after that, he remembered more and more. He was in the courtyard. He was in the library. He was in his room. He was watching him, but every time he tried to speak, he crumbled into a pile of ashy pink-purple dust that blew out all over the floor. Stephen guessed it couldn't've happened to a nicer guy. 

One morning, when he woke, he remembered more. Kaecilius hadn't tried to speak - he'd just taken a sheet of paper and a pen and written something down, but when Stephen tried to read it, the letters swam on the page like oil on water. He tried to scrawl it on the floor but the letters floated up into the air and popped like inky bubbles. He tried pens and chalk and a can of tomato soup he stole from the kitchens, more things, really weird things, _more_ , and nothing worked. Then Kaecilius opened his mouth to scream in frustration, and he fell into dust on the library floor. Stephen just found it fucking hilarious, maybe not at the time but definitely after. 

The next time, the next morning, though he pressed his face into the pillow like it might make him forget, he remembered more. 

Kaecilius stripped himself down to the waist as he knelt there in the courtyard dust. He pulled his robes from his shoulders and let them hang. Then he picked up a knife and Stephen watched him, part intrigued and part horrified; he watched him because he couldn't not, as he pressed the tip to the bare skin of his chest. Kaecilius kept his jaw clenched as he did it, so he wouldn't groan and turn to dust, and Stephen saw the letters he wrote one by one, till he was dripping in his own blood and sagging down toward the ground. His tenacity was impressive, he had to give him that. 

_He found a new way_ , the letters said. Stephen didn't have to ask who he was talking about. Writing about. Whatever he was meant to call it.

He shouldn't have trusted him, but at the bare minimum he had to get the facts. The next day he remembered more - the note Kaecilius cut into his chest said there was a back door, another way. The next night, he said he had no idea how to stop it. That was probably why he'd contacted the one person on Earth he thought could help, or maybe that was just the narcissist in Dr Stephen Strange.

"Why should I believe you?" Stephen asked, feeling at least faintly grateful that speaking didn't seem to turn him to a pile of dust. 

_I was wrong_ , Kaecilius wrote. He underlined it. Twice, which had to hurt. Stephen understood. 

In the morning, with a quick hop through a portal into Kamar Taj, the books told him everything he needed to know. Skeptical as he was, Wong confirmed his findings. When Stephen slept, he explained it all. Kaecilius rubbed his eyes, no longer crumbling, and nodded to confirm he understood. Then, he took off his clothes. So did Stephen. 

He can't say he'd never had sex with a man before, because he had, more than once. Sex with a man who'd tried to send the planet to the dark dimension, on the other hand, was not something he'd ever expected to tick off his bucket list, or indeed thought to pencil into his bucket list in the first place. Still, it was the option they had available; maybe all the books said sex magic was a dumb idea, too weak unless it was boosted and too strong if it was, but they had a slight Dormammu problem and by a malignant twist of fate it wasn't even technically against the terms of their agreement. And he was pretty sure the trick with the Eye of Agamotto wasn't going to work twice. 

Kaecilius knelt. Stephen stepped forward. He wasn't quite ready for the feel of Kaecilius's hot mouth around the tip of his still-flaccid cock, but there it was anyway, teasing him, till he started to stiffen. It didn't take much - it had been a while and who knew, maybe if Kaecilius hadn't turned out to want to damn the world to an eternity of torture outside the bounds of time, he might've even seemed attractive. Without the crumbling around his eyes like the day after a really hard Halloween, Stephen might've looked twice. 

He concentrated as best he could. He closed his eyes and he centered himself, and he felt Kaecilius's fingers skimming back to the cleft of his ass. He felt his fingers press between his cheeks. He felt them tease his hole and brush his perineum and the magic was close, rising up between the two of them - he could feel it, but he couldn't reach it. At least not enough for what they needed. 

He eased Kaecilius back and when he raised his brows, Stephen nodded. He went down on his hands and knees on the bed he hadn't actually slept in for months, or maybe they'd given it to another new initiate, which didn't matter because where they were wasn't actually Kamar Taj. He couldn't say he'd never had sex with a man before, but it had been years by then and this wouldn't have been his first choice of circumstances under which to revisit it. But when Kaecilius poured oil over his cleft, parted his cheeks to let it coat his hole, let drip down over his balls, that seemed to matter very little. He had much more immediate concerns.

Kaecilius rubbed his hole with his fingertips and Stephen's cock gave a kick of interest, but it wasn't enough to access the power they needed. Kaecilius rubbed his hole with the tip of his cock and Stephen's cock gave another twitch at that - still not enough, not even nearly. Kaecilius pushed against him. He held his cock steady with one hand and he gripped one of Stephen's hips with the other, and he pushed there, slowly, till Stephen could feel him start to push inside. A few seconds and he was in him as deep as he could go, the fit tight and hot and really, really ill-advised, but it still wasn't enough. So Kaecilius fucked him, slowly, reaching round to stroke his cock in time. It was almost there. It was almost right. But the magic flowing through them didn't take.

He remembered trying again when he slept the next night, and then the next one, five nights, ten, eleven. He remembered Kaecilius's cock, thick and blunt and opening his asshole, and the pulse inside him as he came. He remembered fourteen nights, twenty, getting closer, trial and error, Kaecilius's come dripping from his balls, his hand gripping his cock until he came, too. Stephen couldn't stop talking. And every time Kaecilius needed to say something, he had to carve the letters into his own damn skin. Dormammu has a twisted fucking sense of humor, but at least he knows Kaecilius is telling the truth. He doesn't doubt that for a second. 

Every morning, he wakes knowing Kaecilius fucked him for hours in his dreams. He wakes remembering the heat of his hands and the heat of his cock and the feeling at the first thrilling moment of penetration. He wakes remembering the way Kaecilius touches him, how he presses his mouth to the crook of his neck like they're lovers and not whatever the word for this ridiculous thing is. 

Last night was the ninety-seventh time. It shows no signs of stopping. 

He knows exactly what's happening; there's no back door from the dark dimension except through Kaecilius himself. Either the sex will work in the end and pull him back, or he'll keep him there, just like that. 

Tonight will be the ninety-eighth time. But for Kaecilius, it's always the first.

The trick with the Eye might not have worked on Dormammu twice, but Kaecilius, well. He's not Dormammu.


End file.
